Hortum Caeli
by Kiro Angel
Summary: During the winter holidays during Harry's 8th year, after the war, Harry receives a gift. Hortum Caeli is the most impressive thing that he has ever been given- and who could be using it as a marriage proposal? HPSS, Snarry, slash, one shot, 8th year AU


AN: Well, I wanted to do your standard "secret admirer" story, but switch it up so that our dear Sev was the one doing the admiring. Of course, nothing Sev does can ever be normal or standard, and I was inspired by this new plant I got (ohmydeliciousgodoflove she is beautiful, she has no soil and resides in a plastic pod living off only air and water and she's gorgeous and I'm geeking out so much right now, even though she's a gift for someone else), so this arrived. It is really, really odd but what the hell. Let the ideas flow, man.

Also, about Snape's name/house, I thought about that carefully. See, not only was his father a muggle, he was abusive, and I think that Severus would have forsaken his house, even if he couldn't change his family name. Hence the use of "house of Prince" instead of "house of Snape". Also, he takes the name Potter because of the same reasons.

Also, I DO NOT own the characters or settings of this story, except for the Hortum Caeli itself. The rest belongs to JK Rowling.

Enjoy or else.

~Kiro

* * *

Happy solstice, Harry Potter,

I realize that this is an odd gift, as well it should be. Its connotations should be even more striking, though I would encourage you to read the entire note before I reveal said connotations. I would like to at least have a chance to communicate myself before being cast away. Besides, I dould not bear for you to throw this gift away. I feel as if, after all this time of talking to you inside my head, I should finally give you something in reality. And we are both finally ready for me to do exactly that.

You will like it or you will not, either accept its connotations or not, and I cannot sway your opinion one way or the other in this note. However, you should know that this is completely real and completely hand fabricated by yours truly. It has taken since we first met, when I first started this project, to make it complete enough to give to you. I started the project long before I considered giving it to you. I formed the base then, long before I realized its purpose and initiated the eight-year process of cultivating the rest of the gift. You had better appreciate it and, if you don't, you are less than a quarter the person I thought you to be.

This, if you couldn't tell, which I would find unsurprising with your ignorance, is a terrarium. A terrarium pendant, to be exact, of a small slice of Avalon. This miniature garden of Eden, about the size of an inch cubed, is a shrunken forty by forty by forty-meter cube that I have cultivated myself. Now, while I am not much of a herbology enthusiast, I decided that this would be much more useful than any other thing I could give you. Besides that, it uses my skills with spells, warding, transfiguration, and potions in a most exquisite manner.

It is possible to, when you clench the cube in your fist and say "Avalon's Entrance", enter the terrarium. You will be shrunk down to size and will land on the stone at the center of the garden. The wards have been set so that none but you or I may enter, and no one would be able to trap you or prevent you from entering or exiting the cube.

Hortum Caeli, as I have taken to calling your piece, is a self-sustaining ecosystem. You do not have to worry about care, because it will care for itself. All you must do is power its wards with your magic. It has a large pond, copse of trees, and a meadow. All the plants have their uses, which you will have to find out by yourself, though I have taken the liberty of labeling them all. I will say that you will find many rare potions ingredients within, as well as one of the deadliest poisons and one of the greatest healing herbs. They look nothing alike, however, so even you should be able to distinguish between them.

This has been an eighteen-year project. I finally feel confident enough to give it to you, and I shall do so as a solstice gift. If you want to meet with me, please note that I will interpret it as an acceptance of this proposal of marriage. I had not meant this gift to be so, originally I could not, but in time I have come to realize its true meaning to me. Even if you do not wish to accept the proposal, keep the gift. Its place is not with me, but with you, where it was always meant to be.

If you wish to accept this proposal of marriage, I will be apparating to the far side of the pond in your Hortum Caeli at five to midnight tonight. You may observe my identity from afar, but if you do not approach or leave by midnight then I will take it as rejection. Do not disappoint me.

~Your suitor.

Harry blinked at the note, then down at the small pendant and chain that sat innocently beside his plate of bacon and hashbrowns. Harry was back at Hogwarts, a year after the war ended with a bang, to finish his schooling. It was currently the middle of the winter holidays, the solstice, and the school was mostly empty.

Everyone who had families wanted to spend as long as possible with them, including his friends, and those who didn't were hiding in their dormitories weeping for what they had lost. Harry had been invited to the Burrow, of course, but had declined politely. They all had their own things to deal with. They deserved their own cheerful celebration, their own time to grieve their losses, without Harry. Harry, who was at breakfast and had just received a very unexpected package.

The pendant was beautiful. It indeed resembled a small world encased in glass, the bottom clear as well and showing off root systems and the bottom of the small pond. The thing had its own gravity, it appeared, or was isolated from the world, as nothing that happened to it affected the inside. It had so many unbreakable spells and defense spells twined among the matter that Harry couldn't distinguish the difference between matter and magic. It was a work of art.

The small, clear cube had affixed to its top a small platinum hook, which attached it to a beautifully crafted unbreakable chain. The chain, too, was a work of art, a thick, manly length of chain mail crafted of silver which would wind around his neck like a serpent.

Lifting the length, Harry undid the clasp and slid it over his neck, redoing the clasp carefully and with reverence. The chain slid like water along his collarbone, with the terrarium resting at the base of his sternum. It was the most beautiful creation that Harry had even seen.

He knew who it was from, of course. How could he not? With that many clues in the note, it was nearly impossible not to have worked it out by now.

To tell the truth, Harry had thought about this- well, not this exact situation, obviously, but the general idea- many times over the years. This man had caught his attention from the first day Harry had laid eyes on him, and though many things had changed since then, that never had. He would always be a special case for Harry.

And now the man was proposing marriage to Harry with a magnificent, priceless gift. Well, there was only one thing he could say to that, now wasn't there?

Harry straightened his emerald green button down one last time, sighed out his tension, and grasped the cube tightly in his right fist. Closing his eyes, he called the words required of him and felt a tug not unlike apparition as he was whisked away.

Harry stumbled as he hit the ground, taking a half-step onto a graveled path. He looked around him and was awed by what he saw. All around him were plants of all colors and shapes and sizes, exotic and common, beautiful and plain, twining together in perfect harmony. The soft rustle of wind in the trees reached his ears, and above him mock stars twinkled at him. He could pick out constellations among them, and above him Draco winked.

To Harry's left was a large pond, a shore of round silver gravel descending in a beach to the water, while to the opposite side of the water a sharp clay bank descended into reeds. To Harry's left a copse of enormous and small trees rustled in the breeze, housing small animals and birds. Ahead of him, a grey gravel path lead to a meadow before splitting off to round the pond, and behind him the copse continued around the lake.

Harry stood for a moment, marveling in the beauty of it. Never had he seen a place so odd yet so in harmony. This place was absolutely beautiful, and only for him. It was created specifically for him with form and purpose, from the day he was born. Harry breathed in the fresh air of the ecosystem before he set off down the path toward the opposite bank of the lake. His suitor was due in three minutes and Harry wanted to make an entrance. After the man had gone through such effort, it was important that Harry make an impression as well. He took his time, though, reveling in the beauty of the cool night.

As he started to round the tall reeds, Harry heard the distinct crack of an apparition. Grinning, he quickened his pace, listening to his soon-to-be-fiancé breathe in the night air.

As Harry rounded the corner, he ran his eyes up and down the man's figure. The other had heard him and turned from where he had been regarding the lake, now letting his black eyes linger on Harry's steadily approaching form.

"I was of half a mind that you would not come."

The man did look exquisite that night. The starlight lit up his dark, shoulder-length hair and made it glisten in the moonlight in its short ponytail, several strands escaping to frame his face. The black robes the man wore seemed less oppressive in the nighttime, and their sharp cut revealed his lithe lithe body structure and broad shoulders. Silvery scars ran up his neck to his chin, grim memories tracing abstract designs in the light. His sharp features were sharper in the dark, though less treacherous than in the low light of the dungeons. He truly looked beautiful, in his own way.

"Do you have so little faith in me, love?" Harry replied

The man regarded him with interest and a raised brow.

"I don't know why you would expect me to have faith in you, P-Harry. You only defeated the Dark Lord, you never showed any interest in becoming my betrothed."

Harry smirked, a delighted little smirk that lit up his face like sparkling moonlight in the dark captive sky.

"That shows how much you know, now doesn't it, Severus?"

Grinning fully now, he stepped forward. One step, two steps, four steps and he was inches away from his new fiancé.

"I really love your gift, Severus. I cannot express how much I do, and I don't think that I shall try now. However, I do have one request that I would like you to accept."

Severus stepped closer, pressing himself against Harry as the other reached into his pocket.

"And what would that be, Lion?"

Harry withdrew a small silver box from his pocket and flicked it open to reveal a ring. It was a thick band, a serpent of silver with large emerald eyes who bit it's tail to form a circle. As the lid lifted and exposed it to the light, the living metal unclenched it's teeth and lifted its head, hissing a greeting to the onlookers. Severus could feel the protective spells and defensive magic on the living metal. It, like his own gift, was a work of art.

"Would you allow me to propose to you in the Great Hall tomorrow at breakfast, and will you wear my ring?"

In answer, the man pulled Harry into a soul-searing first kiss.

The next morning at eight thirty am sharp, all students and faculty in the castle were gathered in the Great Hall except for Harry Potter. Harry was bursting in through the doors with dramatic flare, deep green formal robes flaring in the light of the hall.

All conversation quieted as Harry stalked down the aisle to the single table in the center of the room. He moved smoothly along the right side, ignoring the imploring looks and widened eyes as he stalked to the head of the table. There, Headmistress McGonagall watched him with narrowed eyes, and beside her Severus Snape regarded him with cool rigidity. He was definitely unimpressed. As Harry came to a halt beside the potions professor and deputy headmaster, all eyes were on him. Snape turned around in his seat to faced Harry directly, waiting for his next move.

Carefully, Harry bowed and moved forward to grasp one of Severus' potions stained hands before taking to one knee. He carefully withdrew a silver jewelry box from his pocket, flicking it open to reveal a ring in the shape of a silver adder swallowing its own tail. Casting a wandless sonarus, Harry lifted his head and spoke in a clear, calm voice.

"I, Harry James Potter, head of the Potter and Black houses, propose matrimony and magical bonding to Severus Tobias Snape, of the honorable house of Prince. Do you accept?"

Gasps sounded around the table as people looked on with expressions ranging from shock to awe to horror to absolute terror. One particular small child fell out of her seat in a dead faint, but was largely ignored by her fellow students in lieu of the larger spectacle. Severus merely ignored the audience and stood, tugging on Harry's hand and forcing him to stand as well.

"I, Severus Tobias Snape of the honorable house of Prince, do hereby accept this proposal of marriage and magical bonding to Harry James Potter on the grounds that he never do something as dramatic as this involving me again for as long as we both shall live."

Grinning, Harry picked the ring from the box and carefully slipped the ring onto Severus' left ring finger. Once it was firmly affixed, he lifted his face and placed a long, lingering kiss on the potions master's lips.

~ Mini Epilogue ~

Over the next century one of human history's most successful couples introduced some of the three most powerful children ever to the world. The three children in turn had children of their own, and the Hortum Caeli was passed down from generation to generation as an engagement gift, one of the most prized possessions of the Potter family line. It bore witness to generation after generation of tiny children, hiding families, and even the occasional birth. Eventually, its name was lost, and at one point its access was lost, too. But always, the Hortum Caeli was passed on, a living terrarium pendant with a living silver snake twined around the outside.


End file.
